


Part 3: Of Picking Up The Pieces From A Shattered Universe

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: The Synth And The Sentinel [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Depression, Far Harbor (Fallout 4 DLC Location), Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon, Self-Acceptance, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:02:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7864954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danse struggles to cope with the death of his husband and honor Anthony's wishes to bring Shaun to Acadia, a synth colony in Maine. However, his plans don't extend much beyond that, and it falls to Shaun to pull him back from the brink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old Metal

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, lots of trigger warnings, which pretty much apply throughout. It says this anyway, but Danse has not only lost everything he thought he knew about himself and his life, not only lost the family he'd gained by joining the BoS, but has now lost the only person who's every truly loved him. You'd want to die, too.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse returns to Far Harbor so that he can bring Shaun to Acadia

They’d taken Anthony’s holotags.

Still limping on his formerly-dislocated knee, holding Righteous Authority loosely and not caring if something killed him, Danse was stuck on the stupid little fact that Rhys and Haylen had made off with his husband’s holotags. He’d been planning to give them to Shaun.

Even having been in the Brotherhood for a significant amount of his life before now, being able to quote the rules of the Codex by heart, Danse couldn’t help but rue the fact that they’d taken the Sentinel’s holotags. Because now he had nothing of Anthony to bring back to Shaun.

After destroying most of the irreplaceable life support equipment in the room, Danse had been forced to spend the next day semi-sedated on bedrest. Haylen had sat with him for the majority of the time, just talking, even though he’d refused to say a word in response. She’d been trying, if in vain, to comfort him.

After that, until the point where he was physically well enough to make his way back to Maine, he’d spent every waking minute pounding liquor until he passed out again. He didn’t want to be awake. He didn’t want to have to think about his failure to protect Anthony from the behemoth.

He didn’t even want to be alive.

His only purpose, now, was to reach Far Harbor and bring Shaun to Acadia like Anthony had wanted. And after Shaun had been delivered and had closure, Danse knew he would do everything in his power to destroy himself. He refused to exist in a world where no one wanted him and the one person who’d loved him was gone.

In a way, it was a relief. He knew his life was about to end shortly, and so nothing mattered anymore. All his previous fears and priorities were insignificant, because now that the worst thing that could happen to him _had_ happened to him, nothing could ever touch him again.

But, God, how would he be able to tell Shaun what had happened? The boy was smart enough to understand the truth, and he’d undoubtedly want to know it. But Danse knew he couldn’t stomach describing the horrible death his husband had suffered from the nuclear blast.

The image returned to his mind’s eye-the cracked skin, the constant ooze of blood and lymph, Beta-ray burns ruining Anthony’s body. Bandages everywhere and missing an entire ear.

Danse would vomit again, but he hadn’t eaten in days. Once the nausea had subsided he took a sip of purified water through the drinking tube in his helmet and drove the memory away by thinking about what he would say to Shaun.

“It should have been me,” he whispered to himself inside his helmet. _I should have been the one who bit that warhead… Anthony would still be here to take care of his son…_ “Why did it have to be him when it should have been me?”

Despite the fact that he knew he needed to cry, or scream, or rip apart a deathclaw with his bare hands, he didn’t have the energy for anything other than planting one foot in front of the other and reflecting on his dismal thoughts. He almost wanted to ask why this had happened, but he already knew.

Still, though, _why_? Hadn’t God or Fate or the Universe or whoever had their fill of his suffering by now? He’d already lost the Brotherhood and found out his entire life was a lie. Now he could potentially exist indefinitely under a blanket of crippling loneliness.

Danse couldn’t bear the thought.

 

*

 

There was no worse punishment in the universe than slogging across the sandbar, the little island in sight. He didn’t quite understand what he’d actually _done_ to warrant such a penalty (other than the horrendous crime of simply existing), but he would face it all the same.

Even so, every step he took made his feet get heavier and heavier, as if his boots were slowly filling with lead.

“Jake!” Shaun’s small voice called from the shore, accompanied by joyous barks from the dogs. Danse fought tears as he watched the boy rush to the edge of the water, Zach and Gopher at his heels. Dogmeat trotted along more slowly behind.

_Anthony… God, I’m sorry, I have nothing for your son._

The remaining strides were torture until his feet finally punched holes in the sand of the bank. As always, words left him, and all he could do was fall to his knees and pull Shaun against his metal-encased torso in a tight hug.

“Shaun,” Danse whimpered. “Shaun… oh, God, Shaun… I’m so sorry…”

“But… sorry for what? What’s going on?”

Danse drew a shuddering breath.

“Your dad… the behemoth… he… I…”

“Jake, where’s my dad?” the boy asked quietly, his voice indicating he was already starting to figure out what had happened.

“He’s gone,” Danse admitted, his whole body starting to tremble. He couldn’t bring himself to actually say the word out loud. “I was going to bring back his holotags for you… but… they had to be returned to the Brotherhood. Oh God, Shaun, I’m so sorry…”

Shaun was still for a moment before plunging his face into Danse’s shoulder joint and starting to cry. Danse felt himself flooded with emotion, and at first he thought it was pity. After a moment he realized it was real remorse for the boy’s suffering; Shaun’s grief served to deepen the wound of Anthony’s loss for him.

“What killed my dad?” Shaun bawled, nearly driving Danse to tears as well.

“He died from an explosion,” Danse choked out. It wasn’t the full truth, but he certainly couldn’t bring himself to explain what had really happened to a child. “There was nothing we could do.”

Scooping the crying boy into his arms, Danse got back up and climbed the bank to where the shack stood, overlooking the sea with a view of Far Harbor. A thought had occurred to him. He gently set Shaun onto the small bed in the corner before stepping out of his power armor and moving over to the dresser.

Rummaging the top drawer through a pile of socks, Danse used his free hand to wipe tears out of his eyes when he found Anthony’s rusted pre-war dog tags. Instead of a barcode and designate number like the Brotherhood used, the info was stamped into the metal.

KOSTIN  
ANTHONY M  
831-70-2893  
TYPE A RH NEGATIVE  
NONE

Opening the clasp of the ball chain, Danse pulled one of the tags off and set it on top of the dresser before repeating the action with his own holotags. Sliding one of his and one of Anthony’s onto the chain, he closed it again and took it over to Shaun.

“Here you go, kid.”

Danse held them out to the boy, who was still wiping his nose and sniffling loudly. Shaun slowly took them to slide the chain over his head and onto his neck.

“Jake?”

“What?”

“Is my dad with my mom now?”

Danse didn’t know how to answer.

“I’m not certain,” he replied eventually, deciding against telling the kid the truth: that when a person died, their personality and consciousness ceased to exist. But even Danse with his severe lack of practical social skills knew that was the worst thing he could say.

“Are you my dad now?”

This was the only question in the universe that could have possibly caught him off-guard more than the previous one.

“Shaun…”

“I know you don’t like me very much, but please don’t leave me here,” Shaun begged, his eyes awash with a fresh flood of tears.

“No, God no,” Danse exclaimed, getting down on his knees and resting both hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I would never just leave you here by yourself… and why do you think I don’t like you very much?”

“I’m not stupid,” Shaun sobbed, his face crumpled and red. “I saw how you looked when my dad brought me to meet you. You still look at me that way sometimes. You never want to be around me.”

Danse felt ashamed of himself for not realizing until now that the small synth had feelings. He felt even more guilty that he’d never considered how Shaun thought of him. This was Anthony’s son! But yet somehow, though he’d promised his husband that he’d put his best effort in with the kid, he never had.

Danse pulled Shaun to his chest, holding his stepson as tightly as he could without hurting him. Kneeling on the floor as Shaun cried into his shirt, all he could think about was how badly he’d failed, and how much it made him wish he was dead.

 

*

 

Danse didn’t sleep at all that night.

Instead he just sat on the floor with his back against the dresser, smoking a continuing chain of cigarettes and listening to Shaun sleep. The boy had cried himself to sleep in the ex-Paladin’s arms, and every couple of hours he’d woken up in a fright and they’d been forced to repeat the process.

Danse wasn’t strictly crying, just tears rolling down occasionally in silence as he drew bouts of toxic fumes into whatever it was in his body that pretended to be his lungs. He knew he wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway, but he hadn’t even lain down. He couldn’t sleep in that bed, couldn’t even sit on it. Anthony had always been lying next to him, curled around him in sleep or making love with him.

Turning his head, Danse looked mournfully at the worn mattresses. Stained sheets and threadbare wool blankets were piled haphazardly on it, with two flattened straw pillows. Anthony had found a real pillow once, but had given it to Shaun.

His eyes clouded with a fresh wave of tears, remembering. They’d had sex the first time on that bed… a slow, awkward fumble throughout, but wonderful just the same simply because of the love present. Danse hadn’t even known what he was supposed to do, but Anthony had been tender and patient with him.

“Anton,” Danse whispered, barely able to hear himself. He closed his eyes and wiped moisture from his cheeks, but was already welling up again. “Anton… why…?”

 _Why_? He couldn’t believe he’d even said it. Better yet, _why_ was he talking to nothing but the receding darkness of the early morning hours? Danse shook his head at himself, closing his eyes and feeling the wet beads of sadness roll down his face in silence. The only distraction he had was when Shaun woke up again and started to toss in his blankets.

Getting up from the floor, Danse walked over to Shaun’s bed and sat down on the edge of it, patting the boy’s dark hair.

“We’re going to Acadia today,” Danse revealed. “Your dad and I were going to take you when we got back… there is a large number of synths present there. Synths like me.”

“You mean… there’s more that left the Institute?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “People in the Commonwealth are often largely intolerant of synths… even now that the Institute is gone. So the residents of Acadia send out a radio frequency to contact those synths. Acadia is a safe place for them to live. They don’t have to hide who they really are.”

“That’s neat,” Shaun replied, though his voice was still caught on an undertone of sadness. His father’s death wasn’t something he could be easily distracted from. “How come we’re going there?”

“Well… your dad and I… thought it would be a significant learning experience for you,” Danse answered slowly. “Shaun… I promise I will explain everything once we've arrived safely at Acadia. This was very important to your father, and it remains important to me. Alright?”

Slowly, Shaun nodded.

“Okay, Jake.”

“But just so you know… we probably won’t come back here.”

Shaun didn’t say anything. Danse took the last drag of his cigarette and then snuffed out the butt against the wall, using his other arm to pull the boy up against his side. They just sat for a minute before getting up. Danse wasted no time in pulling on his undershirt and military tunic before reaching for his boots, while Shaun slowly changed into his jeans and striped t-shirt.

“Here,” Danse offered, holding out one of Anthony’s old backpacks. “Put whatever you want in it, I’ll carry all of the important equipment.”

“Okay,” Shaun nodded quietly, accepting it.

He watched quietly for a moment while the boy picked through his toys, tools and random junk, selecting which ones he would take with him. Unsurprisingly, nearly all the toys went in, except for the ones that wouldn’t fit like the space monkey. Once they had been efficiently packed, Shaun began loading in his choicest tools and scrap electronics.

Sighing quietly to himself, Danse turned and scooped up his own backpack, putting in Shaun’s clothes, pajamas and pillow. The side pockets were filled with purified water and various cans of soup made out of creatures from the wasteland. For himself, he took nothing but the clothes he was already wearing. He wouldn’t need anything where he was going.

Slinging the pack onto his shoulders, Danse took a moment to put Anthony’s wedding ring onto the ball chain around his neck. His own was still on his hand, and he lamented that a worthless band of old metal was all he had left of his husband. This must be how Anthony had felt when he’d seen Nora die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for another in a series of short chapters... things heat up next chapter, though.


	2. The Ends Of The Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse begins leading Shaun to Acadia, but things start to go awry.

With some difficulty and jury-rigging because it was too big, Danse managed to put Anthony’s combat armor onto Shaun in case they ran into something on the way. “What about your armor?” the boy asked as Danse clicked the strap of the helmet under his small chin.

“It’s not important,” Danse answered after a moment, gently thumping his big palm on the top of the combat helmet. “While we’re en route, your job is to sneak after me. If we come under assault, drop your pack and climb the closest tree. I’ll make sure you reach the objective safely.”

“Like when you brought me here?”

“Yes.”

Danse got back to his feet once he was satisfied that the combat armor had been thoroughly duct-taped to Shaun’s clothes. Without saying anything else, he picked up Righteous Authority out of the corner and led the boy out of the shack. Apparently, though, Shaun wasn’t willing to indulge the need for silence.

“Can I ask something?”

Danse rolled his eyes because Shaun couldn’t see him.

“Alright, but after we’ve gotten onto the main island you need to be as quiet as possible.”

“What really happened when my dad died?”

“I told you, he died in an explosion.”

“But… I mean, I had a lot of nightmares about it last night.” Shaun’s voice was quivering. “I just need to know.”

“Shaun…”

“Please,” the boy begged.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” Danse snapped, sounding much more forceful than he’d actually meant to. “And if I tell you, you’ll just have more nightmares.”

“But-”

“No.” He tried to soften his tone. “Look. There is no possible way for me for me to tell you about it that won’t terrify you and destroy me.”

“But I’m never going to see him again!” Shaun whined. Danse looked over his shoulder and saw that the boy was starting to cry again. “My dad is gone and you won’t even tell me what happened!”

Danse stopped in his tracks, turned, and put both hands on Shaun’s shoulders.

“Shaun. I know you’re unhappy. Believe me, the fact that this happened is just as bad for me as it is for you. But you also need to believe me when I tell you that you _do not_ want to know what happened. It was painful, it was awful, and there was no way it could have been worse for him. I’m sorry. But I can’t talk about it, and I won’t.”

It took all his willpower to keep his voice from shaking as images of Anthony’s radiation burns flooded his mind. Letting go of Shaun, Danse turned and began walking towards the sandbar.

“TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO MY DAD!” Shaun screamed from behind him.

Danse stopped walking again, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. All he wanted to do was get Shaun to Acadia like Anthony wanted. It would be his final mission in life, and he was already fed up with Shaun’s delays.

“Let’s go, Shaun,” he growled through clenched teeth.

“NO!” the boy howled, apparently still foolishly intent on pitching a fit. Danse couldn’t imagine how hard it was for someone to lose their only parent after having never met the other one, but Shaun clearly didn’t understand or care that it was easily just as horrible for him to have watched the only person who’d ever loved him suffer and die in agony. “TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!”

_God dammit,_ Danse thought to himself before taking a long breath through his nose and turning around.

He’d intended to give Shaun the infamous death-glare he’d used so many times to stare down insubordinate Squires, but when he saw the look of utter despair on his stepson’s face he felt his impatience unexpectedly melt. The boy was pulling the bottom of his shirt up to wipe his nose on it, exposing his stomach.

“Shaun,” Danse began softly as he gave in, “do you know about radiation?”

“A little,” Shaun nodded, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. “They told me it’s invisible, but, that there wasn’t any in the Institute and it was all on the surface.”

“Radiation… well… I’m not especially learned in the area of nuclear physics,” Danse admitted, “but I know there are different types. There are weapons called ‘mini-nukes’ that explode and cause significant radiation damage. And… one exploded right in front of your dad... The explosion ruined his power armor and he took all the radiation from the blast. During the fight I was incapacitated and I couldn’t help him. I didn’t even regain consciousness until a few days later… and the doctors took me to see him. They woke him up so I could say goodbye to him. And he died in my arms.”

“But if there were doctors, why did they let him die?” Shaun whimpered, his reddened face crumpling again.

“There was nothing they could do,” he answered, struggling not to let his own tears overwhelm him. “He was so badly hurt that he couldn’t even talk anymore. He had all kinds of medical tubes sticking out of him… Shaun, you need to trust me that it’s good you weren’t there. He would have just died heartbroken if you’d seen him in that state.”

“But I didn’t get to say goodbye,” Shaun sobbed, on the verge of breaking down completely. “I just want dad to come home! _I want my dad!_ ”

Danse watched helplessly as the boy cried into his hands, which made him seem even more comically small inside Anthony’s combat armor. Slowly, the ex-Paladin found himself moving over to his stepson, eventually scooping Shaun into his arms. With combat armor and a pack full of toys the boy was much heavier than the first time Danse had picked him up.

Even so, it made him realize he’d been at least partly wrong in his earlier assessment-he’d been the one to underestimate _Shaun’s_ suffering. His programmed memories were of growing up as an orphan, and he couldn't imagine how hard it was for a child to lose a parent. Feeling ashamed of himself and clutching Anthony’s son to his muscular chest, in that instant he didn’t care that Righteous Authority was slung uselessly over his shoulder. He would carry the boy all the way to Acadia if he had to, mutants, trappers or otherwise.

If he had to, Danse would carry Shaun to the ends of the earth.

 

*

 

Of course, he only carried Shaun to about the middle of the sandbar-immediately on the bank of the main island was a cluster of demolished buildings, and Danse knew for a fact that trappers often set up their camp there. They set their backpacks onto rocks to keep them dry, and Shaun hid behind one.

Swimming as quietly as he knew how, Danse made his way to the shore and crawled up the rock-strewn silt until he was behind the cover of a trash heap. There were only two trappers-they were in the middle of the road, smoking and talking. One was gutting a radstag and the other was tossing vegetables into a pot.

_Idiots,_ Danse thought to himself.

Glaring down the sights, he pulled the trigger and the one breaking up the vegetables died as the red beam speared through his chest. At the electronic noise of the laser rifle firing, the other one looked up and the cigarette fell from his mouth. It was just in time for his skull to explode in a wash of gore from the second shot.

Some of the blood spray hit the campfire, and Danse heard the flames spit from the moisture. Holding his breath, he waited for several seconds before he relaxed, satisfied that there really had been only two trappers. Retrieving Shaun, he checked his field compass and they began making their way southwest. After climbing over some jagged rocks, they hit the stretch of crumbling road, and it would pretty much be straight south from there.

“This part is pretty easy,” Danse whispered to the boy, who only nodded in response as per his instructions.

The sun was beginning to part the morning clouds, shining gentle rays of warmth through the trees. The light set the low-hanging mist afire with a golden glow, illuminating the terrain around them and casting everything in a beautiful sheen. It gave them a false sense of peace and calm that Danse knew he shouldn’t trust.

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure Shaun was still right behind him, Danse’s dismal mood lifted slightly to let through vague amusement; his stepson was looking every which way, eyes wide and mouth open in awe. He was clearly struck by the gorgeousness of the morning environment. Turning back to the path in front of him, Danse just barely saw the glint of eyes-he was nearly too late catching it. Having spent a fair amount of time hunting while Anthony had been in the Commonwealth on missions, he knew exactly what they were without even seeing them: wolves.

_Fuck._

“Run!” Danse bellowed a split second before the first mutant lunged at him with a deep snarl.

Only the yelp of terror behind him said that he’d been obeyed, because at that moment he was bashing the stock of the laser rifle into the side of the wolf’s muzzle. It yipped in pain, thrown by the force of the blow and the momentum it had already carried. A shot through its neck made it drop to the road.

Dropping Righteous Authority, Danse yanked his combat knife out of its sheath on his belt and tackled the second wolf as it was rushing towards him. As he bowled it to the ground his shoulder caught a jagged edge of pavement, ripping his military tunic and scraping the skin below. He growled at the slight pain even while he rammed his blade into the back of the animal’s skull.

“Shit,” Danse hissed when he realized the weapon had stuck. He didn’t have time to pull it free before the third wolf was on him.

Unarmed, he scrambled for a purchase on the mutant, his fingers unable to grab as he fought to keep its fangs from burrowing into his throat. Adrenaline saved him-even flailing as he was, in a crucial instant Danse grabbed onto an ear and yanked downward. Crying out in pain, most of the wolf’s weight went the same way. His breath sawed through his clenched teeth as the ex-Paladin managed to flip himself on top of the animal, dragging it down with his body with his free arm around its neck. He held on as tight as he could until it finally ceased to struggle under him.

Panting heavily, Danse rolled away from the body, sweating and shaking. The adrenaline rush was starting to leave him a little bit, and he’d already been exhausted from sleep deprivation. But he couldn’t rest and he knew it. Sitting up slowly, he wiped his forehead on his damp sleeve to no avail before climbing to his feet.

“Shaun?” he called softly, not wanting to attract the attention of any other mutants.

No answer. The fog stifled any sound, settling an unnerving quiet in the trees as his breathing slowed. Danse wrestled his knife free from the skull of the wolf and scooped up the laser rifle from the road.

“Shaun?” he queried again, slightly louder and looking up into the branches to see if the boy had climbed a tree.

Still nothing. Danse started to feel anxious. He’d told Shaun to climb, but the boy wasn’t the best at following instructions and hadn’t been trained in any wilderness survival. He’d probably given in to his fear and bolted. Seeing a trail of turned-up leaves from obviously hurried steps, his worries were confirmed. Swallowing hard, Danse hefted his laser rifle against his chest and began to track his stepson west. At least Shaun had run right through the leaves, making him easy to follow… of course, some trapper might find him first if that continued to be the case.

“Fuck,” Danse whispered, swallowing his mounting panic.

Angular boulders dropped off a virtual cliff, and Shaun’s tracks had headed straight for it. Worse, a scrap of cloth from the boy’s pack was caught on an edge of rock. It didn’t take much for him to put this together. His stepson had fallen right off the ledge. Looking down the steep slope, he could see a long drag through the parts covered by leaves. Reciting every curse word he knew in his head, Danse slung Righteous Authority over his shoulder and began half-climbing and half-sliding down the rock, scraping his palms raw. Pausing for a second with his weight centered and his boots dug into the soil above the next boulder, he listened for breathing or crying, but heard neither.

Taking a deep breath that failed to still his nerves, Danse stumbled, clawed and dropped the rest of the way down. His heart nearly stopped when he saw a child-sized handprint on a nearby rock marked with blood, along with three sets of boots joining the place where the boy had been.

“No,” Danse whispered to himself. “No, no, fuck…”

The boot-prints led right to the edge of the stream nearby, and if Anthony’s thorough explorations of the island hadn’t informed of a nearby cave, Danse would have been forced to go back for the dogs or give up altogether. As it was, he swam across and began climbing the hill on the other side, narrowly avoiding a mirelurk that was picking for scraps nearby.

At the top of the hill was a small wooden lookout, though it was curiously unoccupied. Slightly below it was a basic turret with its sensor pointed the wrong way. Danse simply cut its wires before it could turn to him and made his way to the bottom. Swallowing hard, he checked his laser rifle and entered the mouth of the cavern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this sequence actually ended up going in a completely different direction than I thought it would, but you know what, that's okay because I like this version better. Yet another fine example of characters who're going to do what they want regardless of my useless plot devices.


	3. Bucket-Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse does his best to bring Shaun safely to Acadia.

The inside was a narrow tunnel through the earth, lit by dim candles. Occasionally Danse was forced to step around the corpse of a dead ghoul, but beyond this there were no signs of life. He knew better. They had to be deeper inside. A larger cavern hollowed out a few yards later was scattered with mattresses, discarded chem containers, smashed boxes.

Cans littered the floor, some half-filled with rotten food and others crushed as if they’d been stepped on. A few weapon components and hits of Jet were strewn throughout. Most unnervingly, he noted a small pile of human bones beside a rusted machete and a dried puddle of old blood.

Danse struggled to maintain calm as he ventured deeper inside. A fork led deeper in, or to a smaller cavern with a shallow pool of water. Though it was clouded, he could see more remains under the surface. Turning right saw a mining cart with yet more bones, and he could no longer trick himself into thinking that this particular pack of trappers weren’t eating other humans as a staple in their diet.

The tracks led deeper in… until he realized that this cave had another exit. Danse pushed back his frustration as he exited the underground pass and saw the trail lead down the side of another steep hill. Creeping down it as fast as he could while still being stealthy, he continued following the trail west. Even with the air as still as it was, he could just barely hear something. Moving a few yards up, there was no mistaking it.

It was the sound of a child crying.

_Shaun!_

Ghosting through the trees, Danse’s breath hitched in his throat when he saw them. Four trappers had set up a tent and a campfire on the edge of the brackish water, two preparing soup out of what seemed to be a freshly-slain mirelurk while the other two stood in front of Shaun and taunted him. The boy was tied to a tree. Most of the combat armor, his pack full of toys and the shredded remains of his shirt were in a pile beside him, and his arms and face were scraped raw. Whether from his treatment at the hands of the trappers or from falling off the cliff, Danse didn’t know.

“Shut the fuck up!” the taller trapper was bellowing, hands balled into fists. “You don’t stop crying, I’ll fuckin’ give ya somethin’ ta cry about!”

“Will you get him quiet?” a second trapper snapped from the campfire as he fed it more wood. “Every mirelurk an’ gulper’ll come runnin’ fer us at that damn racket!”

“Guys, I don’t like this,” the trapper who was gutting the mirelurk insisted as he tossed a chunk into the pile. “Some little kid wanderin’ around, no shooter an’ no knife? It ain’t right… someone was with ’im. Let’s just ditch the little shit somewhere before that someone comes fer us…”

“Shut yer face,” the second one snapped, putting a grate over the top of the fire. “Anythin’ comes here, we’ll handle it. Don’t be such a fuckin’ pussy, Crank.”

The one named Crank shook his head, prying apart a piece of shell with his hands to get meat out of a leg. “Could be one-a them Atom guys, ya know…”

The tall one balked at that comment and his head whipped around to face Shaun again.

“Shut _up_ , you little shit! You ain’t with them Atom Children guys, are ya?”

Shaun just kept choking and sobbing, not saying a word. He must have been injured. His crying was a different tone from how Danse had heard it before, and he was overtly spasming sporadically. Danse crept closer to the bank and his hands involuntarily tightened around his weapon. He wanted to wait for the right moment-but suddenly realized he didn’t have that luxury as the fourth trapper, who hadn’t said a word, made a move to start beating his stepson for an answer. He clenched his jaw and shot the man clean through the back.

“ _Fuck_!” the tall one screamed, jolting backwards as his compatriot dropped limply to the ground. It was the last word he ever said, because the same instant as he was pulling the sling of his weapon from his shoulders the next shot stabbed into his gut.

The other two by the fire caught on much more quickly and a hail of bullets sprayed in his general direction. Danse could tell by the extended bursts and the wide area of dispersal that they didn’t know exactly where he was, though, which was an advantage. He crept through the brush to get a better shot.

One of the trappers bolted towards Shaun, and Danse had to fire twice before hitting the man and downing him. He’d given his position away and he tried to slip backwards to relocate. Sheer luck had the bullet only graze the side of his head, cutting a bloody gash through his hair just over his right ear, instead of penetrating his skull. A pained shout escaped him as he flinched involuntarily out of the scrubby undergrowth, right hand on his head with Righteous Authority clutched uselessly in his left. A rock caught his toe and he found himself suddenly sprawling down the hill. It was the only reason the next line of bullets never caught him.

“You fucker!” the trapper was screaming, still firing wildly in a vain attempt to hit him mid-fall. “You’ll fuckin’ pay fer this!”

Battered beyond measure, Danse tried to stop when he reached the bottom but his momentum was too much. He careened headlong into the corpse of the mirelurk, shoving it into the water. The splash churned water upwards and stinging droplets pelted into his head wound, making him hiss with discomfort.

Full of radioactive blood and chunks of meat, the water sloshed up onto the shore and he suddenly realized how much peril they were about to be in. Scrambling away from the rocky silt, Danse stumbled forward and somehow managed to tackle the trapper as he was reloading.

“You should’na fucked with us, asshole!” the trapper roared even as he was knocked clumsily onto his rear into the water. “I’mma make you fuckin’ pay!”

Danse didn’t even acknowledge the man, moving instead towards Shaun as fast as he could on his previously-injured knee and what was probably a foot with two broken toes. He was remembering the ritual Anthony had gone through called the Captain’s Dance in order to gain the cooperation of Far Harbor’s residents. True to his recollection of that day, several large mirelurks skittered out of the water to attack the trapper, who was madly thrashing as he fought to get away. A few seconds later Danse heard him screaming as the mutated crabs started shredding him with their massive claws.

Dropping to his knees, Danse pulled his hand from his head and in one motion slid his combat knife free and slashed open the ropes holding Shaun immobile. One of the boy’s arms hung limp at his side, but with the other one he struggled to scoop up the pack full of toys. Moving as fast as their injuries would allow, the pair bolted back up the hill and ran until they couldn’t hear the splashing of the water anymore. Within the confines of a thicket comprised from pine trees and thorned underbrush, they stopped briefly, panting. Danse could feel the side of his head still leaking blood down his neck.

“Are you hurt?” Danse demanded, dropping his backpack and sitting heavily beside his stepson.

“My arm,” Shaun whimpered, nodding. “I can’t really move it.”

“Alright,” Danse nodded, leaning in to inspect it. He’d seen this injury a few times, and was somewhat relieved to determine that it wasn’t broken, just dislocated. “Hold still. It’ll hurt for a second, but then it should feel better.”

Danse grabbed Shaun before he could protest and quickly forced his shoulder back into place. The boy yelped in agony when the injured joint was moved, but then when Danse let go he leaned back against the tree.

“It feels a little better…”

Danse nodded.

“Good. Here.” He pulled his pack around onto his lap and fished a shirt out of it. “Are you sufficiently warm?”

“My butt’s all wet from sitting in the sand,” Shaun complained as Danse helped him don the shirt. “Why did they tie me up?”

“They were going to eat you,” the ex-Paladin answered without thinking too much about it first. He rummaged for clean pants in the pack. “Look, Shaun, I’m not angry with you, but I wish you had climbed a tree instead of ran. If I’d been a few minutes too slow you could be dead by now.”

“I’m sorry,” Shaun mumbled, clearly under the impression that Danse _was_ mad at him. “I was just scared.”

“I know.” He nodded as he fastened the backpack shut again and handed a fresh pair of jeans to the boy. “Don’t worry. You’ll be within a secured location shortly.”

Curiously, Shaun pulled a holotape out of his pocket before switching pants, but Danse was too busy wiping blood from his face to think much of it at the moment. Why were so many of his injuries landed on his head? He already had three scars on his face, and now a long line of hair would be missing out of his scalp.

 _Not that it matters,_ whispered that tiny voice in the back of his mind. _You’ll be gone before it even heals._

 

 

*

 

Even if he’d been good with words in the first place, such limited means of expression couldn’t describe the relief that washed over him when they finally reached the massive metal dome that was Acadia. Danse had only been here a couple of times with Anthony, and it had never been for very long, but it still seemed familiar somehow.

Limping through the doorway in the wooden scrap fence, he was immediately confronted by a refugee on guard.

“Well, if it isn’t our resident bucket-head,” the synth refugee sneered, hefting a rusty pipe rifle. Dance felt his expression twist into a grimace at the slur usually used by super mutants to describe BoS soldiers. “Where’s the stick-man who usually holds your leash, huh? Hell knows why’d you come here without him, and with a kid no less…”

Clenching his teeth, Danse shoved past the guard without a word and led Shaun into the building. Anthony had remarked that it had once been something called an observatory, but he wasn’t really sure what that meant.

Mercifully, the next person they ran into was Faraday: “Where is Aster?”

The scientist flinched away from his demanding tone.

“She’s down in her lab, like always,” Faraday stammered. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” Danse snapped, pointing a finger at his head wound and glaring. “We ran into trappers on the way in.”

“Paladin why did you come here?” Faraday asked, his eyebrows coming together. “We know your views on synths, and Anthony’s not with you…”

Danse just growled, burying his sadness under anger and pushing Faraday aside without answering. He led Shaun down to the next level and into the room Aster used as her lab, clinic and garden in one.

“Aster.” She looked up at him. “Shaun fell down a hill and was dragged by trappers. He had a dislocated shoulder, which I put back into alignment. Check to see if he’s sustained further injury.”

She rolled her eyes at his orders, but came over nonetheless. Kneeling in front of him, she smiled as she began feeling his arms and legs for sprains or fractures.

“Hi, buddy. Is Anthony your dad? You look just like him.”

“Yeah,” Shaun nodded sadly. “He was. He… he died.”

The doctor’s smile vanished.

“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry. Is that why you came here?”

“Yeah. Jake said my dad wanted to bring me here because there were free synths.”

Aster nodded.

“Yes. Here in Acadia, we don’t have to be afraid or hide who we really are. We’re safe and free, and most of us are happy.” She got up and stepped back from the boy. “Well Shaun, you’re pretty banged up, but nothing that won’t be better in a couple weeks. I’m really sorry about your dad, sweetie. If you ever want to talk, you can come see me, okay?”

Aster gave Shaun a brief hug before turning back to Danse.

“You should let me take a look at that head wound.”

Danse grimaced.

“It’s not on my list of priorities, doctor.”

“Sit,” she ordered.

Rolling his eyes, Danse plunked down on the edge of a table and turned the injured side of his head towards her. He flinched away at her touch and hissed in a breath as she began cleaning it with strong alcohol.

“You can look around for a few minutes if you want,” Danse grunted to Shaun. “I’ll come find you.”

“Okay, Jake,” Shaun mumbled.

“This is an unusual shape for a wound… did you get grazed by a bullet?” she asked, rubbing antibiotic gel into the gash.

“Yes,” Danse affirmed.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t an inch over.”

“Yes, my husband is dead and my stepson almost got eaten by trappers. I’m incredibly lucky,” Danse replied flatly in a rare moment of sarcasm.

Aster paused for a moment.

“Paladin… I really am sorry.” Her voice was quiet and genuine. “Anthony was a good person.”

Danse winced again as she applied a large adhesive bandage to the side of head and began wiping away the fresh blood that had run down his face. He was filled with bitterness.

“The fact that he was a good person didn’t stop the explosion from melting his power armor,” he snapped, glaring at her. “Being a good person doesn’t mean you won’t die of radiation sickness… he couldn’t even talk and he died in my arms, and all I’ve heard so far is ‘oh I’m sorry.’ Well, _sorry_ doesn’t give him back to me, does it?”

Her expression instantly said she felt offended on some level, but Danse didn’t really care. Everything he’d said was true. Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything else about it.

“Do you have any other injuries, Paladin?” Aster queried, her voice now curt and businesslike.

“My toes…” Danse lifted his knee and untied his combat boot. He let it drop to the floor and pulled off his sock to see that he’d been wrong; he hadn’t broken two, but three. They were jammed and swollen and it was amazing he’d been able to reach Acadia without being in more pain. “Damn…”

“How did this happen?” the doctor wondered, turning to gather the things she’d need to fix his foot.

“I fell.”

“No shit.” Danse scowled at the fact that _she_ was cranky at _him_. “Well, you won’t be able to leave for about six weeks until your toes are healed and you’ll have to wear a cast on the entire foot to keep them from moving and healing crooked.”

Danse shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter, just give me some painkillers… I need to talk to DiMA about Shaun and then I’m leaving.”

Danse started to get up, but Aster pushed on his chest and forced him to sit back down with surprising strength.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Elsewhere,” Danse grumbled, avoiding looking her in the face. “Does it matter?”

Unfortunately, Danse had never been especially good at lying, and Aster, like most doctors he’d met, wasn’t an idiot. He felt his stomach clench as concern washed over her expression.

“Paladin,” she asked softly, “Are you going to try to hurt yourself?”

“That’s none of your business,” was all he could think of. He might be bad at lying, but she certainly couldn’t make him say anything.

“Look.” Aster moved her head to face him, so he turned the other way. “Danse, I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. But please don’t try to do something stupid. You’re all Shaun has left.”

“Anthony wanted to bring him here. I brought him here. That’s all I needed to do,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying. “I have completed my objective.”

“Your son is _not_ an objective.”

“He’s not my son,” Danse spat. “He wasn’t even technically _Anthony’s_ son. He’s a synth made to look like the original Shaun, who’s dead.”

“So you brought him here to abandon him? Does he even know he’s not human?”

“No. I’m going to inform him after you give me the damn painkillers.”

“Oh, that’s _much_ better. You’re going to explain to him that his entire identity is a lie, and then leave him here all alone with no one who knows him or will take care of him. I know that you really loved Anthony and Anthony really loved you, and the fact that he’s gone is just awful. I’m not disputing that. But the least you can do for him now that he’s dead is to take care of Shaun.”

“I got him here,” Danse snarled, jumping to his feet and then grunting as his injured toes hit the floor. He jabbed his finger at Aster. “As a synth colony, it’s _your_ job to take care of synths. Those of us who don’t feel like putting up with everyone’s bullshit anymore, are going to go relieve ourselves of that pressure by drinking half a bottle of vodka and then shooting ourselves if we so choose.”

Aster narrowed her eyes at him.

“Right.” She walked over to the doorway and leaned her head out. Danse couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was obviously talking to someone. “Hold that thought, Paladin.”

“Why, what’s going on?” he demanded.

“I’m fixing your foot. Hold still.”

Without warning, Aster shoved him onto the table and jabbed a syringe into his leg. Startled and angry, Danse sprang away from the table and pushed her in the opposite direction. He started to reach for his sock and boot, but all of a sudden he lost control of his muscles and collapsed. He couldn’t even ask what was happening.

“Nnnnn,” Danse moaned, unable to make any real words.

“You’re a patient. I take care of my patients,” Aster explained gently. “You’re not in your right mind, and I can’t just let you walk out of here in good conscience. You and Shaun are both my patients, and hurting yourself would hurt him, too. I know I can’t make you stay and take care of him… but you need to at least be here with him long enough so that he can get used to it here. I’m sorry it came to this, Danse. I’m trying to help you.”

Danse could only groan again; he could feel himself losing consciousness rapidly.

“You asked for me?” came Chase’s voice.

“Yes. I managed to sedate him, but I wanted you to come here in case I couldn’t and he tried to leave.”

The ex-courser snorted.

“A bucket-head was taken down by a doctor? I always thought Anthony was into him for his brawn but I guess he’s not as tough as I thought.”

Danse blacked out after that.


	4. Fifteen Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse claims he'll be a terrible parent and then proves himself wrong less than five minutes later without realizing it.

When he came to, the first thing that returned was his hearing.

“Why’s he chained like that?”

“It’s alright, Shaun. We’re trying to keep him safe, that’s all.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“We’re going to help him.”

Feeling came back into his body and the first thing that came to him was nausea. Danse started to gag.

“Paladin?”

“Ughn…” he gurgled in response.

A hand was slipped inside his, wrapped in a rubber exam glove.

“If you can understand me, squeeze my hand, okay?”

It took him a moment for the words to register, and another moment for him to regain control of his body enough to constrict his fingers.

“Good. I need to ask you a couple of questions, squeeze again if you think you can answer them.”

He thought for a moment, insofar as he was able to think with the sedatives still swimming around in his brain. Danse decided that yes, he might be able to answer a question or two. He squeezed Aster’s hand.

“Alright. Squeeze once for yes, and twice for no. Do you feel sick?”

Danse clenched his fingers. He was struggling not to throw up at that moment, and was relieved when someone lifted his shoulders and a bucket was placed under his chin. When he had finished and they’d lain him back down, the hand found his again.

“Do you remember where you are?”

He squeezed twice, and with that movement he began to feel the metal rings around his wrists and one of his ankles. The other foot had something heavy covering it, warmed by his skin. He couldn’t feel his toes. Wait, that was an interesting question. Where was he?

He recognized Aster’s voice, but he’d heard her talk to Shaun. He must be at home, on the little island that had that hermit’s cabin. Danse swallowed saliva that still tasted like the contents of his stomach and grimaced. He coughed, and finally found words again.

“Anton?”

“He’s… um… not here,” Aster stammered. Danse heard Shaun start sniffing and coughing. “Hey, it’s okay, he’s not awake yet.”

“I’m awake,” Danse protested, his voice clumsy and mumbling. “Shaun… I can’t feel my foot, go get your dad… ANTHONY! I can’t find my foot…”

He could hear Aster whispering to Shaun in a comforting tone, “Hey, it’s okay Shaun, he’s really not awake yet. I had to give him medicine before I put his foot in the cast, and it just hasn’t worn off yet. He doesn’t know what he saying.”

“Jake, dad’s not here,” Shaun whimpered. “Remember? You took me to Acadia…”

“No… I don’t go there… too many synths there. Maxson wouldn’t like it…”

“But you’re a synth.”

“No… I’m a Paladin. I shoot synths… ugly plastic bastards…” Danse rolled his head to the left; he was starting to feel tired again. “It’s okay… tell him he doesn’t have to find my foot yet. I’m having a nap.”

As his consciousness fled again, the last thing he knew was the small body of his stepson climbing onto the bed and hugging him as tight as possible.

 

*

 

When Danse woke up for real, the first thing he encountered was the fact that he had a migraine to slay a deathclaw. The next thing was that three of his limbs were handcuffed to the bedframe, and the fourth ended in a cast. He could sit up, but not much else beyond that. Aster was busily tending her plants.

“I feel I deserve an explanation for why you’ve restrained me.”

“I think you know the answer to that without having to ask,” Aster replied bluntly. “You’re a danger to yourself.” She turned to face at him with an unforgiving expression. “And don’t give me that indignant look. You’re staying where you are until your foot is healed.”

Danse growled and glared at the cuff on his right wrist. He was well-muscled and strong, but stainless steel would still bind him and he would just hurt himself trying to get out of it.

“You’re holding me hostage due to your own misguided morality?”

Aster rolled her eyes at him.

“Look, Paladin. I’m obviously not a member of the Brotherhood, but I’ve heard enough about it to know that their medical staff realized mental illness is _still_ illness. Losing someone close to you is a disruptive and horrible experience for anyone. It’s not your fault that you feel this way, but you’re going to need some help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Danse objected.

The doctor sighed as she turned back to her shelves supporting bloodleaf plants.

“Right. You’re an ex-soldier with PTSD who binge-drinks and is suicidal. Shaun told me because he heard you and your husband discussing it several times, and because children are more intuitive than you think and he always knew you felt troubled.”

Danse realized he had no way to respond to this. So again, he referred back to Anthony.

“Blow me.”

“I don’t think that would work very well considering you’re into other men,” Aster retorted nonchalantly.

In spite of himself, he couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Touche. But I still hate you for this.”

“You know? I could give a shit. I’m a doctor, and you’re a patient, and if you kill yourself then I’ve failed at my job. Besides, don’t you feel just a _little_ bad that you’ll be depriving Shaun of the only parental figure he has left?”

“I told you, he’s not my son-”

“Stop.” She held up a hand and cocked her head to the side, annoyance written on her features. “I know that as synths we’re only regarded as _copies_ of humans, but when people get married, if one of them already has kids, the other one becomes the second parent. Besides, Shaun is Anthony’s son. Wouldn’t he want you to take care of his son?”

“I enjoy your attempts to guilt me into taking care of a synth-replica of the deceased and morally corrupt offspring of my husband, while reminding me that he’s also dead in the same sentence,” Danse growled in an attempt at irony.

“I just have to ask, do you consider yourself a ‘replica’ of your personality? And as far as corrupted morals, you used to be part of an organized military force that hunts down and exterminates innocent people like Shaun who aren’t hurting anyone and never will that just want to live in peace. And if Anthony _was_ alive, I’m almost positive he’d be fucking disappointed in you for _not_ taking care of his son.”

“For someone who claims you want to help me feel better or some such bullshit, you seem to be doing everything in your power to make me feel worse,” Danse pointed out, bitterness thick in his tone.

“Ah, so you _don’t_ want me to try and help you feel better, but you _do_ want me to lie to you because the truth makes you feel bad and you want to feel better.”

Danse squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.

“I don’t want your help and I don’t want to hear you talk at me! I want you let me leave so that I can explain everything to Shaun and then remove myself from this hell.”

“Ah, yes. Because as a doctor, whose job it is to _take care of people,_ I find myself incredibly convinced by your argument that I should let you go off and kill yourself. Compelling,” Aster nodded sarcastically.

“You know, Aster, I can’t help but agree with our esteemed Paladin here,” came Chase’s voice as she walked into the room. “You are doing a pretty shitty job of talking him down.”

_Somebody please kill me,_ Danse thought to himself, hanging his head for a second before flopping down onto his back again. It wasn’t as if he had any other choice of movements, and that just made him feel even more frustrated.

“Well, _you_ be patient with him after hearing how he thinks he can get away with abandoning a helpless child here so that he can go off himself in the woods…”

“Alright!” Danse bellowed from the mattress. “If I’m going to be confined here for six weeks, instead of verbal torture can I be put under again?”

“Aster.” A man Danse didn’t recognize poked his head into the room, interrupting them before the doctor could answer. “Shaun wants to see his dad.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Danse demanded, also looking at Aster. “He’s not really my son…”

The doctor rolled her eyes at him and only addressed the stranger.

“Yes, I think he can come in, the patient is lucid and displaying _typical_ personality traits.”

He scowled at that, but by that point gave up trying to argue because it was becoming clear they would only torment him further if he did. Chase moved over near his bed and he was surprised when Aster removed the cuffs from his wrists. The third pair still held his left ankle fast, however. Danse rubbed his wrists. The restraints hadn’t been too tight, but it was still much more comfortable to not have to wear them at all. It had only been a day and he already knew he wouldn’t be able to stand being held like this for six straight weeks.

Shaun came in with a stack of tired books: “They have lots of stories here. Kasumi told me I should bring some to you.”

Danse fought not to roll his eyes or groan-Kasumi was the girl Anthony had originally been sent to find. God, had _everyone_ in Acadia been told what was going on with him?

“Well, um… I appreciate the thoughtful gesture,” Danse decided, still rubbing his wrists to get the feeling of the handcuffs off his skin.

Shaun just shrugged in response.

“I learned how to read in the Institute, so I brought over a couple I recognized. This one is about a fireman who burns books, and this one is about people who get grown in jars. The one on the bottom is just a basic electronics textbook.”

“I’m not sure I understand your description of the plots for the first two, but they sound rather ludicrous.”

“I didn’t really get parts of them either,” Shaun admitted. “Mostly because they were written before the war. But yeah, they were a little weird. What do you usually read?”

Shaun set the books down at the foot of the bed and sat cross-legged on the end of the mattress, avoiding Danse’s injured foot.

“Um… well, I didn’t actually learn to read until I was in the Brotherhood, so I’m not especially good at it,” he admitted, before realizing his mistake and frowning. “Or… I guess I was just programmed not to be good at it. But in any case, most of what I’ve read have been tactical manuals and history books about old wars. Very little fiction has ever come my way.”

“That sounds pretty boring.”

“Well… it wasn’t intended as an exercise in entertainment, the purpose was for me to learn how to be a better soldier.”

“I read a lot of stuff at the Institute,” Shaun countered. “Like fairy tales and stories about aliens and books about how different people thought of God before the great war. A lot of science stuff, too, especially about living things.”

That certainly wasn’t surprising. Danse raised an eyebrow as Shaun played with the hem of his tattered, too-big military sweater.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Well… I mean, the other day I asked you a question and you never answered.”

“You did?” Danse frowned. He didn’t recall this.

“Yeah… since my dad is gone, does that mean you’re my dad now?”

Danse took a deep breath in through his nose.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I… the only interaction I’ve had with children is to assist the training of Squires. I have very little knowledge on proper parenting skills.”

“But… I don’t have anyone else. And besides, my dad really loved you. So I want to stay with you, because you’re all I’ve got left of him.”

“Shaun… you’re asking a lot from me right now,” Danse tried to explain. Seeing disappointment fill the child’s expression, he decided on a compromise. “Look, how about we discuss it in a few weeks when my legs aren’t chained to a bed? Is that fair?”

“Okay,” Shaun nodded, forcing a weak smile. He reached into the pocket of his jeans. “Here, I brought you these. They’re gross, but I know you like them.”

Much to Danse’s pleasant surprise, his stepson produced half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The ex-Paladin wasted no time in lighting one and enjoyed a long drag.

“Thanks, kid. I needed these.”

Annoyingly, Aster came over with her hand stretched out, and Danse rolled his eyes as he relinquished his lighter. After taking another puff and blowing the vapor to the side he turned back to Shaun.

“Why do you smoke?”

“It helps me relax,” he answered honestly. “I’d be a lot angrier if I didn’t.”

“What does it taste like?”

“Well, according to some Ghouls I spoke with once, they used to have varying flavors. The cheap ones were awful and the expensive ones were slightly less awful. But apparently now they all taste the same. To me, cigarettes are similar to the smell of smoke when you burn old paper, if they even have any flavor left at all.”

“We don’t usually let people-” Aster started to say.

“I don't care,” Danse snapped, interrupting her. “I’ll stop smoking inside when you unchain me from this bed.” He glared for a moment longer, snorting smoke out his nostrils, before turning back to his stepson. “What have you been doing in my absence?”

Shaun suddenly jumped off the bed.

“Hang on, I can show you.”

Danse had lit his second cigarette by the time the boy returned, holding a battered spiral notebook and a pen. Flipping back the red cover, Shaun showed him the first page, revealing an amazing drawing of a laboratory that must have been inspired by some room of the Institute.

“Shaun, this is incredible,” Danse breathed in awe.

“Thanks.” The boy’s voice was very proud. “I’ve always been really good at drawing. I had tons of them back in the Institute, but after my dad found me he gave me a new notebook to draw in.”

“Can I see?”

“Sure.”

Danse took the notebook and turned to the next page. It must have been the final battle for the institute, because it showed a cluster of heavily-armed Brotherhood soldiers in power armor. Even Ingram and Maxson were in the picture, drawn in exquisite detail. The next one was of the barracks on the Prydwen, two soldiers doing pushups while a third sat on a bunk performing weapon maintenance. Danse knew Shaun hadn’t spent any significant amount of time on the Prydwen, so the level of detail was even more astounding.

He continued to leaf through it, enjoying his stepson’s artwork. A forest clearing with a trio of radstags, a small group of settlers around a campfire grilling meat, a beach somewhere in Far Harbor. The next pen drawing almost caused him to drop the notebook: it was Anthony, wearing his typical fatigues and working on his power armor. Shaun had perfectly captured the moment. Anthony’s strong hands were smeared with oil, one gripping a wrench while the other steadied him on the steel frame of the station. A slight grin of working content lit the man’s handsome features, and Danse bit his lip.

“Wow,” was all he could say.

Shaun gave a small smile: “Whenever my dad brought home scrap for me to play with, I would always sit on the floor nearby when he was doing stuff with his armor. He would tell me a lot about what the world was like before the war. I always wanted him to tell me about my mom, but he never would.”

“He loved your mom a lot.” Danse was sympathetic. “It’s really hard to talk about losing someone you love. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you about it when you asked how he died.”

“Oh,” Shaun muttered, guilt flashing across his pale face as he lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, Jake. I just wanted to know.”

Barely realizing he was doing it, Danse gently set the notebook down on the floor and pulled Shaun over into a hug.

“It’s alright,” he found himself saying. “I know you’re really sad about your dad. I’m really sad about your dad, too.”

“Yeah. I finally met my real dad, and he rescued me from the Institute, but… I thought I’d have him forever after that. But it hasn’t been that long. And now I already lost him again. It’s just not fair.”

“Understandable,” Danse nodded. He’d completely forgotten that Chase and Aster were listening to everything they were saying. “You know, your dad was the first person I got close to in at least fifteen years. When I met him, the first thing he told me about was how he was looking for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Danse swallowed hard. He knew that he had to use this as a segway. “Shaun, look, there’s something I need to talk about with you.”

“Is it because I’m a synth?”

Danse froze for a moment in shock and ended up saying exactly what he was thinking.

“How did you know?”

“Well… my dad gave me a holotape a few months ago, during the winter. It was after that day he fell through the ice hunting and almost died from being too cold.” Danse remembered this; Anthony had been tracking a radstag across a stream and had stepped on a weak spot. “He told me if something ever happened and he didn’t come home that I should listen to it. So… while I was waiting for you to wake up, I played it on a terminal.”

“And your dad made this recording telling you where you came from?”

“Yeah,” Shaun affirmed, nodding against his thick chest. “It was a really long recording. He talked about my mom a little, too… and… he said that even though I’m really a synth, that… he’s still my dad and he loves me anyway. And it made me really sad because he couldn’t tell me this stuff before, but… um… at least I could hear him talking to me again. So it made me kind of happy, too. I feel confused.”

Shaun was shaking a little, similar to how Anthony had trembled when experiencing strong and unpleasant emotions. Danse hugged the boy tighter in response.

“It’s okay to be confused,” he found himself saying, much to his own surprise. “And it’s okay to be sad. I’ve lost people close to me before and it’s always made me just as emotionally unsettled as you’re feeling now. It’s a really hard thing when it happens and you have to go on through life without their love and support. Assuming my memories are from an actual person, I never had parents to begin with. So I don’t know how hard it is to lose them.

"But I’ve met a lot of other orphans. Many of the Brotherhood’s Squires were recruited because their parents died and they had nowhere else to turn. So… in light of that… I know it hurts you a lot now that he’s gone, but it’s really good that you got to have him, even though it wasn’t for very long. Because he took care of you and he loved you. A lot of people don’t get that much. And I know why you feel happy, too.”

“Why?” Shaun asked, looking up but with his head still leaned against Danse’s left pectoral.

“Because even though he didn’t come back, since he left you that holotape, you still got to hear his voice again and that gave you closure.”

“Oh. Well… I mean, it’s still kind of confusing. Because I still feel really bad about him dying. I just wish he could come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because there's no psychology associations after the apocalypse and also because Aster doesn't have much of a character so I had to make one for her, she is kind of unfair with Danse, but I figured that because there's no way she's had any real training in psychology that she wouldn't know being impatient with him will do more harm than good. And in her defense, Danse being irrational and mentally unstable would probably be a handful to deal with compared with his usual wooden self when he's only at his normal level of inner turmoil.
> 
> Additionally, I know that this is pretty out of character for Danse, but as someone who's struggled with depression and mental health issues myself, I can attest to people acting very different from their normal selves when they're experiencing psychiatric disorders.
> 
> Although this scene may seem pointless, I promise it's leading places.


	5. The Pieces Of A Shattered Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danse spends time with Shaun, but also figures out how he can escape.

As always, Danse couldn’t fall asleep, so he had Aster leave the light on so he could at least read the books Shaun had brought for him. Unfortunately the two fiction novels were just as ridiculous and hard to understand as he’d thought they would be, so he tried to read the textbook instead.

“Why was I even programmed to read?” he muttered to himself as he tossed that book aside, too. Most of it was beyond his basic reading skills, and the parts he understood were ungodly boring.

At least they hadn’t bound his wrists again, so he could light up and grind out cigarettes at will. Shaun had managed to con someone into relinquishing another three packs just for him.

Still, this didn’t help much; the boy’s question continued to pester Danse no matter how hard he tried to force it back from his mind. He didn’t want to give Shaun any false hope, because he still had every intention of ending his own life as soon as he got free. But after today, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel a little bad about leaving the kid all by himself.

Sighing, Danse leaned back on the mattress and closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands. All he wanted was to fall asleep and have a sudden brain aneurysm, but his luck could never be that good and he knew it. He’d used up all his good luck meeting Anthony in the first place.

_ Anthony. _ Danse started to choke.  _ Why? Why couldn’t I save you? Why did you die and not me? It should’ve been me… I should’ve saved you… _

Anthony should have been the one to survive. He could have come home to Shaun, and picked up the pieces of the shattered universe much better than Danse was. Even crueller was the fact that the man had pulled through so many things much worse than an explosion, and it was a stupid accident that had killed him.

Alone in an empty office during the middle of the night, Danse couldn’t stop himself from completely breaking and crying silently into his palms. At least there wasn’t anyone around to see him in such a humiliating moment of weakness; Chase would be pacing outside in the hall, and Aster was sleeping elsewhere. He had the small mercy that they’d left him alone to wallow in misery.

Danse fought to keep the noises from leaving his throat as he tried to breathe more evenly and force back the sobs. The tears leaked down the sides of his head from under his hands, making his skin itch and stick to itself. He was forced to sit back up so that he could wipe his face on his shirt.  But his eyes kept leaking down his crumpled face. As he swallowed and worked very hard not to start hiccupping, Danse reached under his collar and slipped the ball-chain free. Pulling it off his neck, he ran his thumb over the metal band identical to the one on his left ring finger.

Danse didn’t know why, but for some reason this particular instant in time was even more soul-crushing than actually holding Anthony as he watched him die. In that moment it just hit him even harder: he would never see his husband again, never kiss him, never nuzzle into his neck as he drifted into sleep.

Gripping the two tags and the ring in his fist, Danse pressed it to his forehead and forced himself with increasing difficulty to stay quiet. He could feel the ridges on Anthony’s tag where the info had been stamped into the metal. The dull ache in his knee and the throbbing of his toes were nothing by comparison to the emotional suffering that was stabbing into his chest.

All he could think right then was  _ if only. _ If only he’d avoided getting hit in the face and losing consciousness. If only Anthony had been two feet further away from the behemoth when he’d fired the mini nuke. If only Anthony hadn’t been sleeping for as long, and Danse had more time to explain how sorry he was.  If only Anthony was here now, and they could nestle together like they always had. He would feel his husband slip off into dreams, and maybe be able to sleep a little himself. How could he have thought for so many months that as long as he was curled around Anthony that he could keep him safe just by holding him? That just wrapping Anthony in his arms would somehow be an impenetrable shield?

He couldn’t do it anymore.

“God, Anthony, I’m so sorry,” Danse whimpered against the tags before he started hiccupping and gasping shuddering breaths through his clenched teeth.

He must have cried himself into exhaustion, because when he woke up the next morning he was surprised that he’d slept at all. Aster was already in busying herself with her morning routines, and Chase was visible through the doorway speaking to some refugee in the hall that Danse didn’t recognize.

“Paladin,” the doctor greeted, glancing at him briefly. “Chase said she could hear you making some kind of noise last night, but by the time I got over here you were asleep.” Danse didn’t even grace this with a reply. Instead, he sat up and began smoking. “By the way… I usually call people by their first names, is yours just Jake or is it short for Jacob?”

He scowled: “As far as you’re concerned, I have no first name. Shaun only calls me that because Anthony did, and for the record I don’t care in the slightest for my first name. So you can call me Danse. You shouldn’t even call me Paladin, I got banished, in case you didn’t know…”

“You did?” she frowned. “Last I heard, you were Maxson’s favorite pet… is it because they found out you’re a synth?”

“Essentially. That’s also how  _ I _ found out I’m a synth, before you say anything.” He snorted smoke out his nostrils. “I’m not going to talk about it either, so no more questions. If you insist I talk you’ll have to change the subject at the very least.”

Aster sighed.

“Look, I know I’ve been kind of cranky with you, and I’m sorry. It’s not your fault that you’re being the way you’re being right now.”

Danse fought not to roll his eyes.

“If you truly felt remorse for your actions you’d let me take a piss on my own,” he pointed out, unable to keep his cranky mood from leaking into his tone. “Or at least take me to an actual bathroom instead of making me use a can.”

“Yeah… see, that cast on your foot isn’t there to look pretty.”

“It’s just three toes,” he grunted. “I lost one off the other foot last winter to frostbite, they’re not exactly essential to my life functions.”

Aster gave him a look, but didn’t say anything else about it because Shaun came in.

“Hey, bud. You’re up pretty early,” she commented, standing up and going over to him.

“Do you have glue?” the boy asked. “Some of my stuff broke when I fell down the hill.”

“Um… I might. Let me check.”

As Aster rummaged her desk, Shaun sat down on the end of the bed.

“Will you help me fix them?”

“I guess I can try,” Danse answered uncertainly. “They probably won’t look as good as they did, though.”

“That’s okay,” Shaun shrugged.

“You’re in luck, kiddo,” Aster interrupted them, coming over and handing a bottle of Wonderglue to the boy with a smile.

After thanking her and rushing out of the room, Shaun returned a couple of minutes later with his backpack. Setting it on the floor at the foot of the bed, he rummaged for a few seconds before producing a rocket and two model robots. He handed them to Danse, who frowned.

“Shaun, these things are tiny. Are you sure you want me to attempt repairs?”

“Yeah,” Shaun nodded, not hesitating.

“Alright…” Danse muttered uncertainly, accepting one of the robot models and the bottle of adhesive. As he painstakingly worked to fix the eye stalk of a Mr. Handy, he could see Shaun pull out the red spiral notebook out of the corner of his eye. “Are you drawing me?”

“Well… yeah,” his stepson affirmed, “but not right now. I mean, I’m not drawing the right now you. I’m drawing something I saw you doing before.”

“What is it?” the ex-Paladin queried, still staring hard at the model as he held the stalk in place with his thick fingers.

“It’s a surprise,” Shaun answered, frowning at his sketch and erasing briefly before scratching the paper with his pencil again. “But you’ll like it.”

“Oh?” Danse questioned, setting down the Mr. Handy and retrieving the model Sentrybot that had snapped in two.

“Yeah. I’m drawing it for you.”

“Are you sure you’re not going to tell me then?”

“Nope,” Shaun smiled. “It’s a surprise, you’ll like it. Really.”

“Alright then,” Danse ceded, nodding slightly. The two pieces slid apart, smearing glue across his hands. “Fuck.”  He wiped his hands off on the sides of the bed before it could set, then immediately pressed the two halves together again, nearly getting his fingers stuck to the model in the process.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Danse nodded, not looking up. “How did your dad suffer through building them in the first place?”

“Well… I mean, he built one of them for me, but the rest of them we built together. And they don’t usually need glue. The pieces just sort of screw in.”

Danse nodded again, relieved that the Wonderglue had set and the Sentrybot was more or less fixed. Maybe the rocket would be easier.

“Well, I’m glad I’ve never made attempts to assemble one. These objects are small and frustrating.”

“Really?” Shaun asked, looking up from his drawing. “I always had a lot of fun when I was building them with my dad.”

“Well, he was always good with his hands,” Danse explained. “And besides, you were spending time together and bonding.”

The boy nodded and returned to his notebook. It was then that Danse saw the object in Shaun’s backpack out of the corner of his eye, close enough that he could probably grab and nobody would notice: bolt cutters. A smaller than average pair to be sure, and somewhat rusted. But they would probably work.

Danse slowly reached out for the backpack, glancing over to see Aster carefully tending her bloodleaf plants on their shelves. Biting the inside of his lip, he carefully slid the pack closer to himself until he could reach the bolt cutters. Checking again to make sure Aster and Shaun weren’t watching him, Danse slid the tool between the mattress and the frame.

Letting out a silent breath through his nose, he forced himself to relax and picked up the toy rocket.

 

*

 

Danse waited patiently for a couple of hours after Aster had left him to sleep before he took action. He wanted to be sure that he was alone.

He held his breath as he sat up and reached under the mattress, slipping the bolt cutters free. It took a little effort to cut the chain from the cuff around his ankle because they were rusty, but Danse was able to free himself in the end. As soon as he could, he stood up and stretched. It felt so good to use his legs even though it had only been two days.

Unable to don his left boot because the cuff was still around his ankle, Danse crept over to the door as stealthily as his cast would allow and cautiously looked into the hall. At the end of the hallway, Chase was talking in a low voice with some refugee, he back to him. Perfect. He slipped around the corner into the stairwell and began moving silently upward.

Immediately turning out of the stairwell, however, saw him face-to-face with Aster.

They both stared in disbelief for a second before Danse shoved her aside and took off at a sprint, ignoring her shouting behind him. He pushed the door open with a slam and once he was outside he kept running, not caring about the direction. Two voices were yelling after him now as they gave chase, and Danse realized the second one was Faraday.

The trees went by in a blur as he charged through the forest, grunting in pain but not stopping as objects on the ground hit his bare foot. At one point he tripped over a rock, but immediately sprang to his feet and kept going. He only stopped when he hit the edge of a cliff.

Faraday and Aster also skidded to a halt behind him, a couple of meters away and not within easy grabbing distance. They were breathing much harder than he was, but Aster still managed to ask him: “Danse, I know you’re hurting, but think of the impact this will have on Shaun. Do you really want this?”

He only hesitated for a second.

“Yes.”

And then he jumped.


	6. Epilogue

Shaun’s expression was sad as he entered the room. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn yesterday, and he was holding his red notebook limply in one hand. He plunked down in the chair heavily and just sat with his head hanging.

“Are you okay?”

Shaun just shrugged, not looking up.

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

The boy was quiet for a long time before he answered.

“I’m mad because my dad is gone and then you were going to leave me, too.”

Danse sighed. He certainly couldn’t fault Shaun for that.

“Well… I essentially received an adequate punishment for it.” He’d broken both legs and his left arm when he hit the ground. “And I apologize for my actions, Shaun. I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time and I didn’t take into consideration how it could affect those around me.”

“They said you were trying to die,” Shaun whispered. He still hadn’t looked up.

“I was very confused,” Danse admitted, knowing there wasn’t any point in lying to his stepson. “I didn’t know what to do and I panicked.”

“Are you going to do it again?”

“No,” Danse answered immediately, shaking his head against one of the pillows propping him in a sitting position. He decided to change the subject so that he wouldn’t have to answer any more painful questions. “You brought your drawings, are you going to show me the one you were working on?”

“It’s… I mean, it’s not actually done yet. But I guess so. You can tell what it is.”

Shaun handed over the notebook and Danse flipped it open with his free hand. Finding the newest drawing, his eyes widened and his breath hitched. Certainly it wasn’t finished, like Shaun had said. The intricate details and shading hadn’t been completed yet, but the rough form was filled out and it was recognizable.

“Shaun… you were drawing this for me?”

“Yeah,” the boy nodded, finally raising his head. “I thought… maybe it would make you less sad, like how the holotape made me a little less sad.”

Danse nodded halfheartedly, still staring at the sketch. He didn’t know when Shaun had witnessed it happening for real because he’d always gotten up earlier than the kid, but it was of him and Anthony slumbering. Anthony was passed out on his back, still wearing his combat armor and boots the way he had sometimes after long Brotherhood missions. Danse was curled around Anthony, wearing a beat-up undershirt and sweatpants. The blankets and Anthony’s pillow had been tossed on the floor in a heap; Anthony had only used a pillow when he had a cold and needed to prop himself up on it to ease his breathing, and Danse was always too hot, even while lying still.

Even unfinished, the picture was an amazing representation of everyday life during their relationship. Anthony had come home exhausted like that fairly often, moving on autopilot until he could collapse onto the mattress and sleep for the next fifteen hours. And Danse had been so relieved that Anthony had gotten home safe that he’d usually snuggled against him almost immediately.

“You were really drawing this for me?” Danse breathed, tearing his eyes away to look at his stepson.

“Yeah,” Shaun nodded.

“Well… why?”

“I mean, because I wanted to make you less sad like I said… but… I just wish you would stay and take care of me. I don’t have anybody else and even though you don’t like me that much, whenever my dad was out on missions you took care of me anyway. So I just wish you would keep doing it.”

_ He’s really not letting this go, _ Danse thought to himself. But he didn’t say it. “Why are you so set on staying with me when you think I don’t even like you?”

“You’re all I’ve got left of my dad,” Shaun mumbled. “And I don’t know anyone else who’d do it. And… so how much do you not like me, anyway?”

“I don’t dislike you, Shaun,” Danse replied, shaking his head slightly. “I… look. When I first met you… I had recently discovered the fact that I’m a synth, and I hadn’t accepted it yet. I still haven’t come to terms with it in some ways. And because you’re a synth, it was hard for me to accept you. It wasn’t because of anything you did. And it was unfair of me to act the way that I did. You’re Anthony’s son and I should have treated you better. I… Shaun, I’m sorry.”

Saying it out loud made him finally realize it: a lot of his husband lived on in the boy. Shaun practically even looked like a smaller clone of his father. And that just made him realize to an even larger extent that he couldn’t live with himself if he refused to take care of Shaun now.

A spark of optimism started to return to the boy’s face.

“So does that mean you’ll be my dad now?”

Danse just looked at his son and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I know the ending is pretty corny, but I thought they deserved it after so much shit. If it makes you cranky, please don't flame me in the comments, just comment a :( and I'll get the message. In any case, thanks for reading it just the same, I had a lot of fun writing it.
> 
> I was debating whether or not to post this really, and I think I'll post an alternate ending so that YOU can decide which one you think is the real ending. That way the people who want this ending can have it, and people who want the alternative can have it as well.


	7. Alternate Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternative close to my narrative around Danse. This way people can decide for themselves which one they think is the "real" ending.

Shaun’s expression was sad as he entered the room. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn yesterday, and he was holding his red notebook limply in one hand. He plunked down in the chair heavily and just sat with his head hanging.

“Hey, bud,” Aster said softly, coming over and sitting next to him. “Do you want to talk?”

He shrugged, not looking at her. He didn’t know if he did or not, really; some part of him did, but he also didn’t know how to say what he was feeling.

Aster slid her arm around his narrow shoulders and gently hugged him against her side. “I’m really sorry about what happened, Shaun.”

He just shrugged again. He knew it wasn’t her fault.

“Do you want to show me your drawings?” the doctor asked gently.

Shaun stayed still for a moment before halfheartedly flipping through his sketches to the one he’d been working on. He handed it to Aster wordlessly-it was the drawing he’d been working on for Danse. It wasn’t finished yet, but was still recognizable as a picture of his dad and his step dad asleep.

“Is this the one you were drawing for Jake?” she asked.

Shaun nodded, then took a deep breath and finally spoke. “Can I use your terminal?”

“Sure,” she nodded, handing the notebook back to him.

Shaun stood up and carried it back to the large circular room where they’d given him a place to sleep. Tossing the notebook onto his mattress, he reached into a pocket of his backpack and pulled out the holotape his father had made for him. He needed to hear Anthony’s voice.

When he returned to Aster’s office, he wasted no time in sitting down at the terminal and plugging the holotape into the slot.

**[PLAY HOLOTAPE? Y/N]**

**[Y]**

Shaun sat back in the chair as the recording started.

_ “Hey, Shaun. I made this holotape after I fell through the ice, because I didn’t want you to have nothing left of me if… if something happened. I just want to start by saying… well, if I’ve already talked to you about this, then you know already… but technically you’re a synth. But I also want you to know that it doesn’t matter to me. You’re still my son, and I love you just the way you are.  _ _ No matter what happens, no matter… how long or short the time is we have together, I don’t have words for how much joy it’s given me to have time with you. After what happened in the Vault, I thought I lost you forever. But then I found you at the Institute. That was one of the best moments I’ve had since I left the Vault. I’m glad you found me before I left the Institute and I was able to bring you home. _

_ “I know you want to know about your mother… it’s hard for me to talk about her. But she… God, she was so happy when you were born. We both were. She was a wonderful mother, she loved you so much. She would always sing you to sleep, she took a whole year off from work just to take care of you.  _ _ I was in the army before that… but when my rotation ended, I didn’t re-enlist. I wanted to spend time with you. I was going to have a job handling nuclear material for Mass Fusion because I was EOD in the army… but… we went into the vault before I actually started… but… God. If that hadn’t happened… if the world hadn’t ended… who knows how things would’ve gone for us. _

_ “I would’ve taken you on drives, taught you how to shoot a BB gun. I would’ve helped you with your homework, gone to your baseball games, taught you how to drive a car. I would’ve helped you move into your first apartment, gone to your wedding… someday I’d be a granddad, when you had kids of your own. I saw the whole future in front of me.  _ _ Shaun… I’m so sorry that future was stolen from you. I had the perfect vision for how life would play out for us. I thought it would be just like when I was growing up, your granddad would teach you Russian, you’d play baseball and basketball just like I did when I was in school. Maybe even make the varsity team at D.B. Tech, just like me. Meet your first girlfriend there. _

_ “I just wanted you to have a good life. A better life than this. Where I could show you how to teach a dog tricks instead of to attack trappers. Where I could take you fishing without being afraid of anglers going after us while doing it. Where we could play catch without constantly looking at the sky to check if a rad storm was coming. A safe life… a comfortable life. A real life. God.  _ _ I know you don’t really understand why I had to destroy the Institute… but… you and Jake were the only two good things that ever came from that place. There’s so much more I want to tell you. So much more I wish I could share. But the holotape is running out of space. So just know… I really am glad I found you. I’m glad we got time together, and that even though you never met your mom, that you got to see me with Jake. When the three of us were together… it felt so complete. I love you both forever.” _


End file.
